My daughter got an
invite from her friend to go trick or treating over at their compound, one we
used to live at, so we all headed over after dark. There are always more houses decorated,
people prepared with candy over there.
Despite all my crowing about American soft power and Halloween
yesterday, the holiday is obviously not pervasive at all in China and is
generally only celebrated in compounds with lots of foreigners or with Chinese
who’ve lived over seas.
And as we ducked down this dark street and over to that one
it quickly became clear that there weren’t nearly as many houses decorated this
year as in years past. I commented on
this to Chinese parents I was chaperoning the affair with and they quickly confirmed. “Oh yes, all the foreigners have left.” “Really?”
“Sure. Now only Chinese move in.”
With this irrefutable data point firmly secured I began to
consider what this might mean. Foreigner
population dwindling: Is that really
true? All the chatter: Lifers throwing in the towel, the cost of
living rising, pollution insufferable, selling foreign software in a
post-Snowden world impossible, had these ghostly whispers suddenly taken
corporeal form, manifest in front of my eyes?
Any of these notions were easy enough to counter in and of themselves,
but here, walking down another dark pumpkin-less street, it suddenly felt very
real.
Later, as my girls were examining their trawl, I asked them,
how they’d done. “The older one piped
up: “It’s all Chinese candy.” “Huh?
Really? “ By this they meant they
had a ton of comparatively less expensive, arguably less tasty sweets of no
discernable brand. “Let me get a Snickers” I said with my hand extended, making
my way over to their piles. “No! I only got two.” “Any Three Musketeers?” “No. You can have one of these lollypop things . .
.”
Oh dear. Was this
more evidence? Even the places that were
giving out candy, were not giving out American goodies. Arguably more and more of the families who
still celebrated Halloween were Chinese. This, or fewer and fewer people that live here can afford
foreign candy. Or perhaps the pull of
American candy brands has simply diminished over time.
I’ve lived in China four discrete times now over the last
twenty years. Each one felt like “the”
moment. Each time the foreigners here
were excited and fed up. Each time
anyone who’d been here for more than six months felt entitled to complain, “it
wasn’t what it used to be.” Each time
people bellyached about traffic and pollution and the incorrigible
Chinese. And each time it was and
remains the most remarkable and thoroughgoing version of civilizational
otherness imaginable.
Sitting in the Bookworm, after a few meetings, nursing my
double espresso. The irresistible
“Ecaroh” by Art Blakey and the Jazz Messengers is keeping the other sounds at
bay. Horace Silver, who was originally a
drummer, is majestic on the keys. Off to
my immediate left is a photo of Gordon Chang.
His “Coming Collapse of China” is still pending twelve years after
publishing. I supposed you just hold out
unto death with a claim like that, as everything will collapse eventually. Sooner or later someone will say you were
prescient. http://www.amazon.com/Coming-Collapse-China-Gordon-Chang/dp/0812977564
In the mean time the CCP continue with their overarching,
multi-generational project of fattening the remainder of the population, the
billion or so in the checkout queue, into happy middle class citizens. This, from “7DS”:
The CCP exists to rule. They will be allowed to rule, they reason,
so long as they provide order. Order is
predicated on a growing economy.
Consumption of Chinese goods in overseas markets cannot be controlled
but the domestic market can be force-fed if necessary. Targets have been set, policies crafted to
boost domestic consumption. China will
eat what it is told. Failure for the Party means chaos, death, and eternal
indignity, not simply a loss of power for an election cycle.
The Party alone will articulate the
vision for Chinese values and architect consent for this ideal, co-opting or
repressing any narrative they do not control.
It is an ironic, conflicting tale. The Party must balance the call for a
boost in domestic consumption with less conspicuous consumption at banquets,
spend more, save less, to realize the ‘China dream’, while prohibiting the
purchase of a second or third house or car.
The nation is now proudly self-sufficient and will use its own money to
build. But if you can get your hands on
any of it, park it overseas as quickly as you can. The CCP tells itself and the nation that it
will pursue this consumptive agenda with probity or it will be out of a
job. They will orchestrate an orderly
flow through the long national checkout counter queue. Those of you who’ve made it through first be
mindful of how you flaunt it. Those at
the back of the line don’t get uppity.
It’s taken 30 years to move a quarter of the population through. That would suggest we have another century or
so to go, if growth and consumption continue without interruption to deliver
wealth to the nation as a whole. And no
one will be accountable on those terms for failure anyway, as we’ll all be dead.
Anyone architecting a project that long, involving that many
people, will necessarily take missteps.
There simply are no blueprints for something of this magnitude. Would you want to prioritize order were you
tasked with stewarding the flow through the checkout? Yes.
You certainly would.
Foreigners coming.
Foreigners going. We’re all just
witnesses, indeed privileged witnesses, to this enormous tidal flow. That kind of flow could never be entirely
comfortable or predictable or civil. The
progression remains exceptional though, and its there in front of you at all
times, when you pause to focus. When you
can’t or you wont’, it may well be time to leave. It ain’t like it used to be, and it never
was.
________
I was 废寝忘食 and forgot to enter a chengyu on this day . . .
fèiqǐnwàngshí: to
neglect sleep and forget about food (idiom) / to skip one's sleep and meals /
to be completely wrapped up in one's work
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